Celtic Mythology and Religion

THE GAULISH RELIGION. 6\
on the banks of Scamander. The horses, in Homeric
fashion, weep tears of blood and fight by their
master's side ; his sword shines redly in his hand,
the ' light of valour hovers round him, and a goddess
'
takes an earthly form to be near him and to help
him in the fray."
THE GAULISH
RELIGION.
The religion of the Gauls is the only Celtic religion
of which we have any description, such as it is, left.
Now, we should be justified in assuming that the
Gaulish religion is
fairly representative of what the
old religion of the British and Irish Celts was, even
though we had not Tacitus' direct testimony to this
being the case. The descriptions we have of the
Gaulish religion are sufficiently meagre. Three
chapters of Caesar, a few lines from Diodorus, Mela,
and Strabo, some scattered allusions in Pliny,
fifteen lines from Lucan, and a statement from the
Greek Timagenes reproduced in Ammianus Marcellinus,
are practically all our authorities. The
statues and inscriptions preserved to our time are
almost our only authority for the names of the deities;
while the calendar of the Church saints, local
festivities and traditions, render some little help
in this and also in matters of ritual.
Caesar's sketch of the Gaulish pantheon, though
meagre, is yet the best. We owe it entirely to the
fact that for practical purposes the Gaulish religion